The Buzz
Village club ... and village ... for sale
The idea of owning your own cricket club might not cost you as much as the many millions of dollars paid for IPL franchises
Martin Williamson
25-Feb-2013
The idea of owning your own cricket club might not cost you as much as the many millions of dollars paid for IPL franchises. For a mere £20 million or so, you can buy not only a quintessentially English village club but the entire village as well.
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Linkenholt, near Andover in Hampshire, is going under the hammer later this week, and included in the sale are 22 cottages, a shop, a commercial shoot as well as almost 2000 acres of land.
The cricket pitch and pavilion, which doubles as the village hall, is one of the main attractions and is described as being “set in an idyllic ground in the north Hampshire downs, the club combines beautiful countryside with good, competitive cricket”.
Full postI say major, those Cowdrey poems are good
Politics can be tiresome business
Nishi Narayanan
25-Feb-2013
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Major, who loves the game and was the former president of the Surrey County Cricket Club, said he had jotted down poems throughout his seven-year stint at Downing Street. "They were about cricket subjects and about politics and about characters,” Major was quoted as saying in the Telegraph. “With some of my political poems it is probably best they are never seen in public! But in the case of Colin I am pleased to share it. We were very close friends and used to get together for whiskies almost on a weekly basis." A total of 307 copies are being auctioned because the figure was Cowdrey’s highest total. The poem is reproduced below:
The mellow sound of bat on ball
The wherewithal to enthral
On feather bed or fiery track
Talent far above the pack
All on display at a glance
As Colin Cowdrey took his stance.
His style was gentle, full of grace
Delicate as Flemish lace
When a troubling ball came down
Fair caressed it all around
Some were hit, a few let pass
In Cowdrey's cricketing master-class.
With speed or spin, sharp eyes could see
The blade of grass where the ball would be
And to follow - swift and sure
A stroke to excite the connoisseur
Such memories still linger on
So long after the day has gone.
Firm wrists to coax the ball away
To all parts of close of play
A push for one, sometimes a pair
Three for a cut to backward of square
And - hear the full-throated roar -
A dazzling cover drive for four.
Now, he out; no more shall we see
That brand of Cowdrey Mastery
A style so easy, so unhurried
So very English, so unflurried
The master with a Corinthian touch
To Whom victory matter - but not that much.
No relief for journalists at Kensington Oval
The only moments of relief for the cricket journalists covering the tedious draw in Barbados between England and West Indies were the bathroom breaks
Nishi Narayanan
25-Feb-2013
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Then Wayne Daniel, not the West Indies fast bowler but a reporter with the Atlanta-based Carib Voice, found himself unable to get out of the women’s washroom that he had entered after finding the men’s room locked. The rescue team assembled once again and this time a crowbar and some well-aimed kicks did the trick. The Oval’s maintenance manager said the two locks had malfunctioned due to ‘wear and tear’ and not because of lack of maintenance. Just how many people had to struggle to hold on as the rescue team grappled with the door?
Full postLife's a beach for Australia's World Cup stars
Peter English
25-Feb-2013
Beach cricket in summer is as Australian as winning World Cups.
Matthew Hayden ensured the men’s team made it three in a row in 2007 and the women’s side will attempt back-to-back successes when the 2009 global tournament begins in New South Wales on Saturday.
Full postCricket was imported from Belgium?
Has the first potshot of the Ashes been fired
Nishi Narayanan
25-Feb-2013
Has the first potshot of the Ashes been fired? News just in: Cricket could have been imported in to England from northern Europe. This could be a bigger blow to England’s campaign than the chance of Andrew Flintoff missing the entire series. If a researcher from the Australian National University’s department of English and theatre is to be believed, a poem written in 1553, attributed to John Skelton, refers to Flemish weavers, who settled in southern and eastern England in the 14th century, as “kings of crekettes”.
Paul Campbell discovered the reference in the poem ‘The Image of Ipocrisie’ while searching for variations of the ways in which the word cricket was spelt back then. He was aided by German academic Dr Heiner Gillmeister, who first established that ‘cricket’ had its linguistic origins in Flemish. “It could be the earliest known reference to the game which we know as cricket,” Gillmeister was quoted as saying in the Sunday Telegraph. "Of course there is something quite ironic about a German and an Australian making discoveries about what is considered to be such an English game, and in reality that game being a foreign import."
The lines of the poem believed to lend solid proof to the import theory are:
"O lorde of Ipocrites/Nowe shut vpp your wickettes/And clape to your clickettes!/A! Farewell, kings of crekettes!"
Waxing lyrical over Sachin Tendulkar
Sachin Tendulkar will never be forgotten, not by a generation of Indians and certainly not by cricket
Will Luke
25-Feb-2013
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Sachin Tendulkar will never be forgotten, not by a generation of Indians and certainly not by cricket. But if anyone wants to find out just how diminutive the “little master” really is, they can come face to face with him at Madame Tussauds who are to spend £150,000 ($USD 215,000) on creating his waxwork.
Tendulkar, famously modest and private in spite of his achievements, might have discovered the perfect solution in combating his insatiably adoring fans. Tussauds’ waxworks are world renowned for their lifelike realism, and Tendulkar becomes the third cricketer after Brian Lara and Shane Warne to be converted into a wax statue.
“We are delighted to confirm our next sporting superstar is going to be Sachin Tendulkar; his achievements on the cricket pitch are phenomenal and he is one of the biggest names in international sport,” said the museum on Friday.
Full postSlumdog cricketer
In India, cricket and films are often the quickest way to arrive in life
Nishi Narayanan
25-Feb-2013
In India, cricket and films are often the quickest way to arrive in life. Having watched the Oscar-winning Slumdog Millionaire, where a poverty-stricken teenager makes it big, Allan Border thinks it’s possible for underprivileged kids to improve their lives through cricket. In Mumbai, coaching children rescued through an anti-child labour campaign, Border said he’d like to see a “Slumdog cricketer” come through the ranks.
“We understand the kids we work with in Mumbai have had a very tough upbringing,” Border told the Daily News & Analysis. “So we want to bring some fun back into their lives and have some fun doing it as well.
"When you come as a cricketer you stay in five-star hotels and get looked after incredibly well and play at great stadiums. On those trips you don't see the real India but through these programmes you get to see the real India or a different side of India. It's different from where we come from.”
As a result, Border said he had a "great appreciation for the story line”. Here’s hoping real life emulates the reel life.
Full postClub cricketer beats Oram in six-hitting contest
Less than 24 hours after it rained sixes during the first Twenty20 international in Christchurch, New Zealand unearthed their biggest hitter
George Binoy
25-Feb-2013
Less than 24 hours after it rained sixes during the first Twenty20 international in Christchurch, New Zealand unearthed their biggest hitter. And it wasn’t Brendon McCullum, Jacob Oram or even Ross Taylor. The batsman who smashed the ball 98.27 metres during the inaugural State Big Hits competition at the Basin Reserve in Wellington was a club cricketer Jimad Khan from the Onslow Cricket Club. He beat off some serious competition: Ian Butler was second with a 94.77m hit while Oram came third with 91.89m. Have New Zealand found their David Warner?
Full postWarne's Ashes worries
Nearly 16 years after his 'ball of the century' to Mike Gatting marked the start of his domination of England, Shane Warne unusually finds himself a little apprehensive going into an Ashes series.
Cricinfo
25-Feb-2013
Nearly 16 years after his 'ball of the century' to Mike Gatting marked the start of his domination of England, Shane Warne unusually finds himself a little apprehensive going into an Ashes series.
He may not be sending down those ripping legbreaks anymore, but he has signed up to commentate for Sky this summer. With Australia looking at their shakiest in a long time, Warne isn’t looking forward to calling the game with the likes of Ian Botham and Nasser Hussain if England start to dominate. “Copping an earful from 'Beefy' if we’re under the pump out in the middle . . . I reckon I’d be counting down every second to the end of my stint on air,” he wrote in his column in the Times. What England fans would have given to have had Warne jittery ahead of an Ashes campaign during his playing days.
Full postDravid's new price tag
Cricketers keep lending their names to products all the time but how many have works of art based on their nickname
Nishi Narayanan
25-Feb-2013
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